Why political pandering in video games does not work, in 2 pics.

That feeling when you catch a glimpse of one of the reasons your $40 million game has poor sales, poor reviews, and more youtube ridicule than any other game in the last 5-10 years…

Well, here we can see the issue quite clearly. The female character was deemed “too pretty” and rather than leave her that way and risk upsetting gamers (who are offended by attractive characters?) they decided to turn her into what can only be described as a giant albino smurf. So after the disastrous fallout (for many very good reasons as well as the cosmetic ones) perhaps Bioware learned its lesson with Mass Effect Andromeda? Or perhaps it’s too late for that now that parent company EA is breaking up Bioware Montreal and pushing their next game back by over a year for no particular reason.

So alas, I gotta say it’s looking pretty official now- social justice gaming is the hill Bioware decided to die on.